


als Selbstzweck

by Todesengel



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Drug Addiction, M/M, Philosophy, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-15
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:06:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is not a means nor an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	als Selbstzweck

There was blood on his boots. Dark, wet blotches on the worn leather, like ink carelessly dripped onto a page. Absurdly enough Alec found his attention focused entirely on this fact, ignoring the body on the ground and the giddy thundering of his heart. He found himself annoyed and when Richard came back from cleaning off his sword, he said, "I do wish you'd be more careful, Richard. You've gotten blood on my boots and you know that I'll never be able to get it out; and these were nearly new."

Richard shrugged. "Give them to Marie. Besides, it's hardly noticeable."

Alec _hmmed_ quietly to himself and stared at his boots and that led his eyes, quite naturally, from the spray of blood to the body. He stared, hard, and his skin felt tight and strange, blood roaring like sex, like the drugs. The world tasted like glass on his tongue, like crystal -- cool and sharp and brilliant, prismed, faceted.

He'd never had a man killed before -- never had the need -- and he was surprised at the rush it gave him. He felt powerful, like a river swollen with snowmelt, like the pull of the moon. Powerful and aroused and reckless, the edge of danger so sweet, burning with the aching thrill that had filled him in that moment when he thought he would die, the knife pressed up against the soft side of his throat, the small bones of his wrist grinding together in a mock embrace. The body filled his world, captured him, until Richard almost touched him but didn't, hand stopping just short of his shoulder, palm brushing lightly against the cheap wool of his robe.

"Alec? Are you done here?"

Alec turned his eyes away from the body, let them drift up to Richard. He felt slow, heavy. Like flakes of snow falling in the middle of winter, large and silent, perfect geometry. There was blood on Richard's boots as well, and on his shirtsleeve, and on the cuff of the frayed coat he wore. A jagged gash on his wrist, lurid red, a smile out of place.

 _Richard killed a man for me_ he thought, and his body no longer felt slow, but frenzied, frenetic, alive. His blood sang with tension, with desire, with urges that he couldn't name. The rush of warmth that settled in his stomach was so unfamiliar, so alien, and it frightened him a little.

His mind was so quiet. So silent.

"You're bleeding," he said, dreamily.

Richard reached up and touched the side of his neck with a gentle caress. When he brought his hand away, the tips of his fingers were stained the color of rich wine. In the slanting light of the dying sun that crept down the long, narrow streets of Riverside, his blood sparkled like shards of rubies.

"So are you."

*

Harry had never killed a man for him. In fact, Alec rather imagined that Harry would have pissed his pants and groveled in abject fear if confronted by a man with a knife and a desire for Alec's blood. Harry had not been strong, or powerful, or even very handsome. He'd had a pug nose that had been broken once and reset badly, and eyes that were too big for his face. Mud brown eyes and mud brown hair, and he'd been soft and skinny in that particular way of starving students. All sharp corners and slack muscles.

He had not been beautiful, or charming, and he was devious in that peculiar way so characteristic of the University's scholars. All those tutors and scribes that were churned out with a lot of useless rote crammed between their ears and passable penmanship, and the deep, burning urge to claw their way ever higher.

Alec had loved him, madly, innocently. Harry's mind had been beautiful, brilliant, amazing, and his voice had sounded like the golden tones of summer. He'd known who Alec was -- they all did, since it was impossible to keep a secret in the University -- and the first time they'd met Harry hadn't bowed or scraped or flattered him, but stared him straight in the eye and said, "Determinist or non?"

"Non, of course." Alec laughed, more arrogantly self-confident than normal, still riding high on his act of defiance, the horror in his mother's eyes when he told her he wished to be a scholar. The University was still so new, so novel, so fresh and strange even after a month's time, and he was so young. He had not seen Harry's act for what it was, flattery inverted but flattery nonetheless. "I am the only master of my will."

Harry nodded, solemnly, and stuck out his hand and said, "Harry Stone."

"David Campion." It had felt so strange to shake hands -- rather novel in fact. Harry's hand was firm and warm and dry, like the grip of old papers made soft by use. There were ink stains on the fingers of his left hand, and the red scratches left behind by a metal nib carelessly cleaned on flesh. Alec could feel the callus left by the stylus on Harry's finger, the strange dip between his knuckles.

"Listen, Campion, we're having a little session tonight down at the Bird and Babe. You interested?"

Alec had looked into those eyes and seen nothing but honest emotions: lust and interest and tentative friendship. Appreciation. There had been no sign of deceit, no hiding. And he had been young and stupid and full of romantic ideals. He had still believed that eyes couldn't lie.

*

"What happened?" Richard asked as they mounted the stairs in their stockinged feet, their boots and his clothes left in a bundle for Marie. Alec cast a lazy look over his shoulder. He touched his fingers to the cut on his neck, felt the tacky grip of his drying blood. Richard's eyes were opaque, curious in an oddly detached way. Like a chemist eying his crucible, Alec thought, and the familiarity of Richard's detachment made him feel cold and anxious all at once.

"I was winning," he drawled out, and Richard nodded in acceptance. In Riverside, that was enough of a cause for a fight as anything else.

"You should be more careful." Richard's tone was neutral, inoffensive, yet Alec took offense anyway. "Tomorrow I'll get you a knife."

"Why, so I can stick myself and save someone else the trouble?" Alec pushed open the door to their rooms, laid a fire in the grate. Restless action, his blood still troubled by some strange humor. "Besides," he said over the sound of flint and tinder. "You know how I feel about violence."

Richard took the flint from his hands, pressed the tips of Alec's fingers lightly to his lips.

"Yes," he murmured. "I do."

*

Harry had been everything he expected him to be. Coarse and heavy and selfishly rough in bed, unrefined in his attentions, untutored in the ways of lovemaking. He sought out his pleasure directly, bluntly, and Alec had laughed at him, enjoyed the change from the mincing lovers of his past, and not minded the unthinking strength of Harry's caress. Harry liked to wax rhapsodic about the color of Alec's eyes, his hair, his skin, and press rough kisses along the fine sweep of Alec's collarbones. And even in sex their lives revolved around the mind, around Rhetoric and Geometry, around light and time and angles of the sun.

"There is a man," Alec drawled out one evening as they lay naked and sated, the smell of sex woven inextricably with the scent of aged leather and ink and paper, "up in the North, who has written a book on ethics."

"Mmm?" Harry murmured lazily, staring up into the space between his fingers, eyes glazed with Delight. Alec wondered what strange dreams he was seeing there, what visions were springing before his eyes. He kept his hands behind his head, though he knew he should have been reaching for pen and ink and paper, ready to catch Harry's words. But he had all of Harry's words engraved upon his skin, scored there by the grip of Harry's hands, the rough swipe of his tongue.

"He writes that men are not means but ends in themselves and should be treated as such at all times."

"And do you believe that, Davey?" Harry rolled over and crawled to where Alec lay, put his head into Alec's lap like a large, affectionate dog.

"I do," Alec whispered while he kissed Harry, tasting the bite and mingled sweetness of the drug on his lips. "I surely do."

*

Richard held his body still while Alec washed out the wound on his wrist with brandy, which was more than Alec did when Richard returned the favor, wincing and sidling away from the sting of alcohol along the side of his neck.

"I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?" Richard said, quietly, and his voice wasn't beautiful at all. It was strange and edged, and it cut through the air like steel. All sharpness and slanting tones and tapered sounds.

"Ah, I am a coward," he said into Richard's skin.

"You are beautiful." The words slid across his skin like a sword being stroked with silk. Alec reached out blindly and grabbed Richard's wrist, kissed the skin and felt his lips burn. He tugged at the ties on Richard's shirt, still giddy, still surging with death. He needed this, now, here, needed to calm his body.

"Richard," he breathed.

Richard touched him carefully, slowly, and the first time they had fallen into bed together Richard's gentleness had been a surprise. Alec had expected him to be blunt and forceful, to move with the same exacting precision that he displayed in his fighting, honing in on his prize with single-minded viciousness.

He wasn't.

He didn't.

He drew Alec out with sneaking caresses of his long, sure hands. The rough calluses on his palms and fingers caught at the fine hairs on Alec's body, tugged them, made him shiver. Firm touches for all that they danced across his skin, never holding, never pressing, just there, long gentle strokes, contact. All the finesse and flair he never showed in his fights, all the flash and tease, and it made Alec's world shudder and spin, dancing like the shadows of a fire.

"Your hands, Richard, your hands," Alec said, and he grabbed Richard's wrist, and pressed down hard on the wound, because gentle and slow frightened him. Bit the side of his cheek and tasted blood. Richard twisted his wrist away deftly, used the motion to push back Alec's hair, stroke his face.

"Shh, shh, Alec." Richard's breathing was harsh and uneven, burrs on the polished steel of his voice.

The room was stifling hot. Alec drew in breath after breath and none seemed to reach his lungs, and the same aching thrill of oblivion, of dying, filled him up.

It was not so pleasurable this time.

He pushed at Richard above him, suffocating in the gentle warmth of Richard's body. Clawed at Richard's skin, desperate to be free.

*

The end was harsh. Brutal. Life with all the gilding stripped away.

It had been cold inside the lecture hall, and empty, and Alec would always remember the way the torn pages looked on the smooth stone floor. The way the ripping sound seemed to linger in the air.

"Your aunt," Griffin said, fast, rushing, desperate, words dropping into the void left by the chancellors. "She can do something. Make them change their minds."

Alec shook his head, his principles still so precious to him.

"I won't be used," he said and Harry laughed, dark and ugly.

"You selfish bastard." And there wasn't anger in his beautiful voice, or hatred, or anything at all. Just something broken that shattered those golden tones. "It's all just a game to you, isn't it Campion. We're all just little toys for you to play around with and discard when you're bored. For all your high talk, you're just like the rest."

"Harry--" And Alec hated the way his voice trembled, hated that he was so weak, so transparent. Hated that he had allowed himself to get so enmeshed in another, that he'd opened himself up so wide to this intangible wound. That he had been so blind.

"Oh just go away."

"Harry, _please_ \--" Alec reached out, but Harry turned away, and Alec was still a prideful man. He would not beg any more.

*

"Why?" Alec asked, from his sprawled position on the bed, fingers tracing the delicate carving of the headboard. The ceiling above him stayed firmly in place, as did the bed and Richard's body. The world was ordinary and dull, browns and creams and grays, nothing golden and precious, nothing special, nothing marvelous. "It won't help you if it's known that you'll kill for free."

Richard shifted, moved until he lay further on Alec's body, turned his head so that his lips brushed the corner of Alec's cheek. "You're mine," he said with casual possessiveness. "People need to know."

"Yours hmm?" Alec turned the answer over in his mind, known all along that this was the one he would be given. He looked down at Richard, his face masked and openly naked, the outside blending with the interior until the two were indistinguishable -- if, indeed, they'd ever been separate at all. Plain, straight lines, all ordered and neat. A mathematical proof in bipedal form, mysterious in its simplicity. "Until you grow tired of me, I assume."

"Never." Richard brushed his lips against Alec's jaw again. "Mine forever. Mine until you leave."

"Ahh," Alec sighed. He stared up at the darkness pooling on the ceiling between the rafters. Richard moved again, reaching down to pull the blankets up over their entangled forms. He was heavy, solid, real. He smelled like oil, like leather, like blood, like steel.

Alec closed his eyes.

Braced himself for disappointment.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for A for Yuletide 2005. als Selbstzweck translates as "an end in itself".


End file.
